TikTok users can now post text-only content, a breakthrough for a social media app known for short videos.
The new format is the latest change to the social media landscape after Twitter rebranded itself as X on Sunday and Meta introduced a new text-based social media app, Threads, this month.
TikTok Announces Changes in a blog post it’s monday night Several user It said it first accessed the text-only format in June.
“Text posts push the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving them a dedicated space where their creativity can shine through comments, captions and sentences they’ve seen in videos,” the company said in a blog post.
The feature will allow users to post without background visuals such as videos and photos that are characteristic of TikTok. There doesn’t seem to be another name for the text post feature.
Before the new format was introduced, users could enter text above video and image posts, as well as captions and comments. Some even create their own text-only posts by sharing screenshots of text-centric content from outside TikTok, such as other social media apps or text his message conversations.
TikTok text posts can be customized with music, background colors, and stickers just like video and photo posts. You can also tag other users and add hashtags. A TikTok spokesperson said in an email that text posts can be up to 1,000 characters in length. The company says the app will continue to limit video descriptions to 2,200 characters and comments to 150 characters.
Owned by China’s ByteDance, TikTok was popular in its early days for its visual and audio-focused content, including short videos of people dancing and performing skits that made the app synonymous.
Over 1 billion people use the app monthlyinclude 150 million people TikTok says access is restricted by some local and central governments in the US due to security concerns.
The new TikTok format comes along with other big changes from the most popular social media company.
This week, Elon Musk changed Twitter’s brand name to “X” and began replacing the company’s trademark bird logo with a new letter logo both online and at headquarters. Last July, Twitter announced it had more than 237 million daily active users.
Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, announced Twitter competitor Threads earlier this month. Posts are mostly text, but users can also share videos and photos.
Less than a week after its debut, Meta announced that over 100 million people have signed up for Threads. It is not yet clear whether this early success will continue.
Threads was introduced during a tumultuous time for Twitter, but Twitter has changed a lot since Musk bought it last year.
